ing her point.

"Oh, it's a good thing to go, Dora."

"A good thing for you! And the regatta coming off the first week in
June, and a whole crowd coming from Toronto for it. There isn't another
person in town I care to canoe with, Lorne, you know perfectly well!"

"I'm awfully sorry!" said Lorne. "I wish--"

"Oh, I'm GOING, I believe. Stephen Stuart has written from Toronto, and
asked me to sail with him. I haven't told Mother, but he's my second
cousin, so I suppose she won't make a fuss."

The young man's face clouded; seeing which she relented. "Oh, of course,
I'm glad you're going, really," she assured him. "And we'll all be proud
to be acquainted with such a distinguished gentleman when you get back.
Do you think you'll see the King? You might, you know, in London."

"I'll see him if he's visible," laughed Lorne. "That would be something
to tell your mother, wouldn't it? But I'm afraid we won't be doing
business with His Majesty."

"I expect you'll have the loveliest time you ever had in all your life.
Do you think you'll be asked out much, Lorne?"

"I can't imagine who would ask me. We'll get off easy if the street boys
don't shout: 'What price Canucks?' at us! But I'll see England, Dora;
I'll feel England, eat and drink and sleep and live in England, for a
little while. Isn't the very name great? I'll be a better man for going,
till I die. We're all right out here, but we're young and thin and
weedy. They didn't grow so fast in England, to begin with, and now
they're rich with character and strong with conduct and hoary with
ideals. I've been reading up the history of our political relations with
England. It's astonishing what we've stuck to her through, but you can't
help seeing why--it's for the moral advantage. Way down at the bottom,
that's what it is. We have the sense to want all we can get of that
sort of thing. They've developed the finest human product there is,
the cleanest, the most disinterested, and we want to keep up the
relationship--it's important. Their talk about the value of their
protection doesn't take in the situation as it is now. Who would touch
us if we were running our own show?"

"I don't believe they are a bit better than we are," replied Miss
Milburn. "I'm sure I haven't much opinion of the Englishmen that come
out here. They don't think anything of getting into debt, and as often
as not they drink, and they never know enough to--to come in out of the
rain. But, Lorne--"